


Making Plans to Stay

by Caligraphunky



Category: Dragon Quest Builders (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Old Age, Old Friends, Post-Canon, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-24 10:30:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20356990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caligraphunky/pseuds/Caligraphunky
Summary: The Builder doesn't want to live forever, but that's not a choice Malroth has a say in. Being a god just isn't all it's cracked up to be...





	Making Plans to Stay

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this before the epilogue was out so if there's some hidden dialogue in there that makes this entirely non-canon then...Sorry.

The bars didn’t gleam like they used to. 

The silver and gold were tarnished, worn out, not like when they were first built. Malroth could remember it like it was yesterday; Clarity, the builder, placing the silver bricks one by one as he kept watch through the night for monsters, the clinking of metal on metal becoming more musical to his ears the longer it went on.

He remembered the way the silver metal reflected the stars and moon. When the night was at its peak the residents would open the golden lights, let the water extinguish the fires that lit the pool, and swim. Look up into the sky, and there would be stars. Look down into the water, stars. He’d let himself float, and could forget he was ever on land in the first place. It felt like he was flying through some ancient, formless void of space. 

At the time, he didn’t understand why the feeling was so familiar. 

When they’d finished the gold bar, when he and Clarity had stepped back to take it all in and admire the work their friends had done, the desert was transformed further. It reflected the sun’s light back on the canyon, as if the rock itself was speckled with gold. He remembered the residents of Khrumbul-Dun heaving golden bricks into place and laying down carpet, their fear for -and jealousy over- Babs breaking down and being rebuilt into a camaraderie as strong as the architecture.

That was 60 years ago, and Malroth had felt none of that time. He was still as young as he’d ever been. Where the hair of his friends had turned white and wispy, he hadn’t needed a haircut in his life. Where his bones were young and quiet, theirs cracked and popped. Where the miners had grown soft and feeble, his muscles were still as taught as the day he was...created?

Their world was real. The rising and setting of the sun was now no mere illusion of time, but a true indication of its passage, and Malroth had found that a bitter pill to swallow. His best friend was now in her 80s.

And the bars had gone all grubby.

Malroth was in Krumbel-Dun because they’d received a letter from Jules about the most beautiful vein of diamonds he’s ever “varda’d his peepers on,” and asked Clarity to come pick them up lest they drive him “too stonking gem crazy.” 

She couldn’t, so she’d asked Malroth.

“I’m old, Malroth,” she said matter-of-factly, with the same doofy smile she always wore, “I just can’t handle those long boat trips anymore. Not to mention that new captain just isn’t as smooth a sailor as Brownbeard was.” 

“You’re not  _ that _ old,” Malroth muttered, crossing his arms to worry at his sleeves with his fingers. He felt a little knot of trepidation in his stomach for reasons he couldn’t...well, didn’t  _ want _ to pin down. He kept his gaze over the side of the dock Clarity had built for Brownbeard years ago, watching the seaslimes ooze through the seaweed and under the wooden supports as he leaned against one of the pillars.

The words seemed silly even as they were coming out of his mouth. That fact that he was no older than he’d ever been made denying her age even more of a complete joke. On him. 

Clarity must have seen a different kind of humor in it. Her smile widened.

“Nice of you to say, but...I’m old. I’m terribly,  _ horribly _ old, Malroth. I’m so old I should be calling you ‘young man’ and offering you a sweetie whenever I see you. In fact, let’s practice!” She shoved her left hand, the one not holding the cane, into her tunic and started to coo. “Ooooh, hello young man! You’re so handsome today. I think I might have a little treat for you in my pocket-”

“Don’t you dare! I’ll kick that cane out from under you! I swear I will!” Malroth recoiled in indignation and nearly fell off the dock doing so, which just made Clarity chuckle.

“Oh, fine. More for me.” She popped the piece of sugarcane candy in her mouth, working it around to hold it in her cheek against her teeth, which she had somehow managed not to lose even though she’d lived off sweets for as long as Malroth had known her. It amazed him, when he could bring himself to think about it, how little she’d changed in that time. 

“Really, Malroth, my poor ol’ hips can’t take that Blondebeard driving us into another swell. C’mon, I’ve made up a list of what else I need.” She started the slow process of walking to her house, which she’d made out of the shelter Lulu had commanded her to build when they first met, and the clack of her hardwood cane sounded sharp over the waves.

Malroth jogged a few steps to walk beside her. “I thought we’d promised not to lie to each other ever again.” 

She glanced over to him. “We did. And I’m not. I really do need those vineapples. I had this wonderful idea for a new sort of pizza, and-”

“You’d want to go to Khrumbul-Dun even if all your arms and legs were broken, even if you had to go there hanging onto a Chimera’s tail! Now you want me to run errands for you because suddenly, just today, your hip is bothering you? What do you take me for?!” There was no way Malroth was going to phase her by yelling at this point, so he felt free to do it to his heart’s content. Even Perry had long ago grown immune to Malroth’s sharp edges.  
  


“I take you for a man who hasn’t had to feel what 60 years of going down cliffs  _ the fast way _ will do to your joints.” Clarity hobbled up the wooden path to her front door. “Really, Mal, I mean nothing by it. I just think a little time away would do you good.”

Malroth’s eyebrows arched in surprise. “How do you mean? And why didn’t you say that in the first place?”

“Because you’d deny it.”

“I still don’t-”

“And I’d tell you you were dealing badly with the changes going on around here. And you’d say” -She put on her deepest, most gravelly voice- “‘grrrr, no I’m not,’ and I’d say, you just think you’re not. And then it would become a whole argument and it still wouldn’t change how you’ve been acting.”

Before Malroth could ask, again, what she meant, Clarity continued: “You’ve been doing nothing but hanging around the ones of us that are still alive. You’ve been hovering around me constantly as if I’m about to keel over any second, and you’ve been talking about the old days more than Digby does. He’s older and in worse shape than I am! You might not be getting as old as us, but you’re a carrier for a disease only us elders get: nostalgia.” She clapped her free hand on his shoulder for a second. “You can’t let that progress, Malroth. It’s deadly, especially for someone like you.”

Malroth felt like his feet had been swept out from under him. His eyes darted in thought before he realized what she was doing. “Wait, you’re giving me a task? As if that’s just going to take my mind off…” he gestured with both arms to encompass all that existed on the island, and all that was on his mind, “everything?”

“Why not? It always worked for me, and we’re really not  _ that _ different. Never have been. I like it when people give me a task. You get antsy when you think there’s something wrong, like you have to fix it. I guess that’s why you’ve always been a good builder.”

He frowned. “You’re not getting that old people disease where you forget stuff, are you?”

Clarity scoffed lightly, and shuffled through the door of her cottage. Before he followed her inside, Malroth made a point to turn to the platform on which they’d had their first tea party. It was worn, covered in barnacles, the tablecloth tattered and yellow and stiff with seasalt, but it was still standing. At the landing where the wood met sand stood a little memorial with the word “LULU” carved into the base. He nodded to it, as he always did, and then entered.

The shelter-turned-cottage reflected its owner, that was for certain. She’d remade the facade in wood and stone, but when she needed more space she’d taken to simply carving chunks out of the cliff. The result was not so much a room as the aftermath of a wrecking ball explosion. A simple bed and bathtub were jammed into the corner to make room for the various crafting stations she used every day. The lighting was dim and muddy, on account of the blueprints and sketches that covered every flat surface: the walls, the floor, the windows, and the golden light boxes.

“I  _ hope _ I’m not going senile,” Clarity said as she used her cane to sweep papers aside, “That would completely mess up my filing system.” 

“Are you going to take this seriously at all?” said Malroth.

“...That doesn’t seem to be the case, does it?” Clarity braced herself on her cane and squatted to look under her bed. Malroth tried not to notice how her knees trembled, how she had to squint through glasses like a ship’s porthole, or how her joints cracked on the way back up.

Instead, he picked a blueprint hanging on the wall to stare at. “I’m not a good builder, and you know it.”

“And I say you are. You must know as much as I do by now.”

“I  _ know _ it, but I can’t  _ do _ it. I can make little things, simple things, maybe, but I can’t throw up an entire village in a day like you do. I don’t have the talent, and I never will.”

Clarity shuffled through the stack of papers she’d pulled out from under her bed, looking for her list. “You’re lying to yourself, Mal. You’ve always been good at it, from the very start.”

“Just because I can make torches-”

“No, before that.”

“Medical herbs?”

“Before that.”

“I  _ couldn’t _ build before that, Clare!” Malroth slammed his fist against the door frame, threading the other hand through his hair in exasperation. Clarity’s smile didn’t falter as she handed him the correct paper.

“See?” she said, laughing behind her other hand, “Sounds to me like you’re the one getting forgetful! Frustrated too. If your head is so jumbled you forgot the first thing you’ve ever built, well, that’s as good an indication as any that you need a break!”

He eyed the list like it was a handful of night soil, before sighing and snatching it out of her hand. He knew he’d lost. “I still don’t think it’s a good idea. What if something happens to you while I’m gone? You don’t have the voice you used to. If something happened and you called for help, no one could hear you, and no one else has my sense of smell-”

“Oh,  _ now _ you admit I’m old!” she said, “Honestly, Malroth, I’ll be fine. And even if I wasn’t, you can’t leave off your whole life just because you’re worried about me. From all appearances, that would be a  _ very _ long time!”

She must have noticed him bite his lip, because her face softened. The mischievous gleam in her eye faded to warmth and a little hint of concern, and he finally found it in himself to meet her eyes. “ _ Promise _ you’ll be alright when I get back?”

“I  _ promise _ .” Clarity drew her hand solemnly to her chest, and dragged her finger over her heart in an ‘X’ shape. He looked into her eyes, and he found he could believe that she meant it. 

Brownbeard was a quirky fellow, but Blondebeard, his successor, was far more taciturn, almost cold. The day-and-night trip was taken in silence, broken only by the sound of waves and Blondebeard’s muttering about Malroth’s position at the bow of the ship. For all practical purposes, Malroth was alone with his thoughts. And his thoughts kept drifting back to Clarity.

The day and night were hot, too hot to keep the bad thoughts out of his mind. If he didn’t know Clarity as well as he did, he might have believed she was trying to trick him. And maybe he still did. Just her hips, she said, but Malroth had been keeping his eye on her.

He could remember his friends from when Clarity was young, from when they saved the world together. In fact, he seemed to have the most tremendous difficulty forgetting anything at all, which Clarity chalked up to the fact that his mind was still young. 

He thought about the ones who were still alive: Perry, who spent most of his time sleeping in an armchair. Digby, the man of a thousand stories about the old days. Anessa, who was somehow still strong, even if most of it was gristle rather than muscle, and who had helped Malroth bury all the friends who were no longer alive once...well, once it had been Esther’s turn. 

The Isle of Awakening’s graveyard had grown far too much too quickly over the last decade. 

And what did it mean that he wasn’t aging? He couldn’t face the question, even as it rose to the top of his thoughts whenever he wasn’t focused on the sound and smell of the sea. He’d never experienced this without Clarity, not once in the 60 years they’d known each other. They’d only taken one ride in silence, right after they left Moonbrooke, right after their biggest fight. 

He’d told her he’d never wanted to see her again. 

_ And it won’t be that much longer before I really do never see her again. _

“I won’t be turning around if you fall off, Red-eye!”

Malroth’s arm shot out to catch himself before the rocking hull of the ship caused him to tumble into the ocean. Blondebeard’s shout barely registered in his head. Clarity was right about his steering, but it had shaken him out of his own head. 

Who knew he’d miss when the terrible thoughts in his head came from Hargon instead of himself? The Khrumbul-Dun dock was in view, half-obscured by black shadows where the cliffs cut the light of sunrise.

“Don’t you ever polish those?”

Malroth didn’t know the name of the miner who handed him the bag of diamonds. He was a young man, as far as Malroth could judge, short and not as muscular as the older miners. Malroth didn’t know their names either, but he guessed they all came from one of the outlying islands to work relatively recently, judging by the new dormitory buildings had sprung up around the mine’s entrance. Outside the door of one, an old woman was knitting a shawl, half paying attention to their conversation.

The young miner put his hand on his chin, or where the chin would be on his standard miner’s helm. “Cor, I ‘unno. S’far as I know, they always been like that. Guess they’s a bit grubby but shinin’ ‘em up’s a bloody pain, innit? Better work to be done underground.”

Malroth slung the bag over his shoulder. He fixed the miner with a glare, but got not much back except a shrug and a half-step back.

“Don’t you think someone ought to be taking care of them? They’re- They  _ were  _ the pride and joy of Khrumbul-Dun, and now they’re just collecting sand! You know they were the work of the builder who saved this world, right?! What kind of way is this to treat her legacy?”

Just then, the knitting woman spoke, and Malroth noticed she was still wearing tights under her frock. He then recognized her as one of the dancing girls called by the Builder’s Bell when Clarity was first building up the community. “‘Eck, ‘e’s got a point there, Arthur. I was there when they were first built. Proper sight, it was!” 

Arthur tapped his fingers together. Malroth couldn’t see his expression, but he was clearly on the bottom of the pecking order by the nervous way he fidgeted. The muffled voice of another miner called from the Copper Bar.

“Oi! We can’t be havin’ those things turnin’ the sun into one o’ them monster death rays.” The shouting man was big and strong, scarred from his shoulders to where his chest vanished under his belt, and he was charging like the bull his helm resembled, head down and feet stomping. The next second, Scar (as Malroth dubbed him) was toe-to-toe with Malroth, sizing him up. The fact that Malroth wasn’t intimidated by him seemed to throw him off his rhythm.

“Ah, come orf it!” the fishnet woman exclaimed as she picked a knot out of her knitting, “We use them bars near ev’ry day! We oughta be keepin’ ‘em up!”

Arthur had retreated from the group, but apparently not from the conversation. “Erm, we stopped shinin’ ‘em for a reason, yeh? We, uh, we were gonna...” he looked between Malroth and Scar rapidly, finally settling on Scar, “Uh- you tell ‘em.”

Scar pulled himself up to his full height. He was quite a bit taller than Malroth, but from the way the helm was tilted Malroth could tell he was looking at his fangs. 

“We don’ polish them things ‘cause when we got that mine carved out the other way, they shined the sun so ‘ot it was settin’ our supports on fire! This desert’s bad enough without some daft flashy boxes catchin’ our work on fire every day at half-past!”

“Oooh,” Arthur let out a moan, “Don’ start a row ‘ere! You’ll crack up the walls of our bunkhouse! Ada, do somethin’!”

Ada. That was her name. Malroth didn’t know what to expect from her and Scar wasn’t any closer to backing down. He was obviously used to throwing his weight around with the other miners, and he didn’t seem to know what to do if Malroth called his bluff. Ada didn’t seem to have the power Babs once had over Khrumbul-Dun. For a moment, the air hung hot in time.

Well, he had been sent here to get his mind off things and a fight might just do the trick. None of his former sparring partners were in good enough shape to take him on anymore, nor did any of the monsters pose a threat. Malroth was slightly surprised to realize how ready he was to get into a real proper scuff with these men.

But instead, Ada, put her fingers in her mouth and whistled as loud as she could. The sound reverberated through the nearby cliffs and sent a colony of Bunicorns scattering in all directions.

“Y’know, when I was a lass the Silver Bar was me favorite place in th’ whole blimmin’ universe. When the moon was full and we put out the lights it was like swimmin’ thru a galaxy there’d be so many stars innit, and when the Gold Bar was all lit up...Oh, it’d melt yer heart! A big pool’a liquid gold, ‘cept it wouldn’t scald yer to dip in. What could be th’ harm in givin’ a spitshine on occasion?”

“Cor,” said Arthur, rubbing his forearm, “No foolin’? That...might be worth it? A bit? Yeh?”

Scar was still standing too close to Malroth, but his entire focus was on Ada. “Din’t yer listen, ya ol’ biddy? We ain’t burnin’ down our ‘ole mine fer some kinda space...swim practice!”

Malroth crossed his arms. What would a builder do? He’d seen building projects go up and come down countless times. Sometimes Clarity would need to move something, either a few inches to the left or across the entire island. Sometimes she’d call him over so he could help tear everything down, and he could track which of the eight separate rooms where each individual piece of furniture would end up. But they couldn’t move the bars, could they? That would mean going back for the blueprints to make sure they got it all right, and Malroth didn’t have the kind of...leverage? Charisma? Whatever it was that Clarity used to get people to build what she drew- it would take to convince all these miners to take down everything and clear a space in the canyon for them.

Scar had completely forgotten about Malroth, and was storming over to Ada. With the feeling of threat gone, he let himself walk closer to the site of the Silver Bar. Off to the side of it was an adobe building, the windows covered with sun-faded curtains. The massage parlor, he recalled. Malroth remembered watching Clarity make those curtains.

_ “Why would miners care so much about being fancy?” _

_ “I dunno, Malroth. Maybe they just don’t like spending time in the sun.” _

_ “Fft, sure. That’s why they live in the desert.” _

_ “Yeah, and spend most of their time underground or in bars or drunk or-” _

_ “Ha! Maybe their brains fry in the sun. So they dig up gold and then they get it in the sun and forget what they wanted it for, so they just have you do the first thing that pops into their heads to cover it up.” _

_ “Malroth! Be nice!” _

But she was laughing when she said it.

“Why don’t you cover them?”

The three Khrumbul-Dun miners didn’t hear him at all, they were so busy squabbling. He tried again, but they didn’t even look up from the argument. So Malroth marched over to the Builder’s Bell, raised his hammer, and struck the bell as hard as he could.

The ringing seemed to echo and multiply through the cliffs, like Ada’s whistling had, but more so. It was as if there were thousands of bells, ringing all throughout the land. It still wasn’t anything like the beautiful sound Clarity coaxed from it all those years ago, but it worked. The fight stopped. The bartenders preparing for the influx of workers they’d get that night poked their heads outside. Malroth could hear shouting from underground, as the rest of the miners dropped their work and came up to see who was making the noise.

Malroth found himself the center of attention, and he intended to make the most of it.

“Alright, you slackers! I think it’s high time you started taking care of the things you were given!” He swung his hammer in the direction of the Gold and Silver Bars. “How are you supposed to keep your motivation up for mining if you let the fruits of your labors just go to pot like that?! So, first off, we need a spot of polish on those two watering holes! We can make them look like new again!”

There was a murmur among the crowd, but it seemed to split into two. The younger members of the town sounded disgruntled. They had no idea who the strange man was who thought to be giving them orders, and Malroth picked out they were talking about his ears and eyes. The word “monster” drifted around the crowd once or twice.

But the older members seemed to be excited by the prospect and their energy eventually buried the complaining. He could see at least some of them recognized him from the hundreds of times he and Clarity had visited before they stopped coming decades ago. Why had they stopped? Malroth couldn’t remember.

No, he could, if there had been a reason. There wasn’t a reason. It just slipped further and further away from their minds as they built up the Isle of Awakening and the surrounding lands. As if maintaining the triumphs of their past adventures were as unimportant as remembering what they ate for breakfast that morning

Ada stepped forward to address the assembly, which snapped him out of his thoughts. “‘Ere now, Malroff is right! We all worked so bloomin’ ‘ard on them things and it’d be a shame to let ‘em crumble because we couldn’t tell a breakin’ bar from a dirty one!”

Malroth saw Scar towering over the heads of most of the crowd, shaking his head. “Nuts, the lot of yer! I ain’t never seen no one try an’ burn down a desert before, and I ain’t gonna be part of it!”

“So cover it!” Malroth shouted back, “If the builder can make a giant building out of gold, surely it’s not gonna break your back to make a few sets of curtains!”

Ada turned to him with a sparkle in his eye. For a moment, Malroth thought she might just volunteer to make the curtains herself. 

“Roight then,” she said, clapping her hands. “We’ll need as much cotton and fur as yer can squeeze out o’ them Bunicorns! I think we still got a fair whack of oil from the last time the Builder was here. That oughta do for a nice polish!”

Scar crossed his arms and looked at the floor. “I s’ppose you want me t’ start huntin’, do yer?”

Ada smiled. “Indeed I do! Take yer brother and Malroff with yer. He’s tasty in a fight, if me mem’ry serves.”

“Arthur I’ll take, but I ain’t goin’ with that goofy-’aird-”

_ “Ackley.”  _ The word was brambles in her mouth. “Listen to yer mum. _ ” _

Scar- _ née _ -Ackley gripped the horns on his helm and made a noise that might have been a scream if his face was exposed, doubling over as he did so. When he came up, he growled out the last two words Malroth would hear him say for the next two days. 

_ “Yes ma’am.” _

And they were off. And it did take three days of near non-stop monster hunting to get them the supplies. With elder brother Ackley thoroughly cowed by his mother, most of the talking was between Malroth and Arthur. Through Arther he learned that the mine had nearly run out of ore twice, but they found other veins of precious metal just as they were about to give up on it. He learned that Jules the Goodybag had been appointed to organize and manage their brand new storehouse, and that he talked about Clarity and Malroth a lot, even if no one could really understand what he said. He learned that the copper bar had been re-purposed as the atrium to an inn, as they were starting to see an influx of would-be mushroom farmers show up. He learned that Ada had been married by some lady claiming to be a priestess and now they were building a chapel in a used up section of the mine. Moving the town underground wouldn’t be out of the question now.

On the second night, when the three of them were cooking some cactus on a bonfire, Arthur ventured a question.

“So, er, if I can ask ya, Malroff sir...Why you so worked up about the bars in the first place? I know ya said you were there when they first got built, but that ain’t true is it?”

Malroth watched the fire more than the brothers. “It is. Clarity built it to help revitalize Khrumbul-Dun when the Children of Hargon ruled this part of the world.”

“Can’t be!” Arthur swallowed hard, as if ashamed of an outburst. “I mean, er, sorry for sayin’ so, but you don’ even look like you coulda been born yet when that happened.”

Even Scar (Scar was a cooler name, Malroth decided, but he didn’t want to let him on his cool nickname until he decided to speak to him again) was watching him like he was a curiosity in a zoo. Malroth felt uneasy. Without Clarity there to vouch for him, he had no idea how he came off to the people who weren’t familiar with him.

“And just how old do you think I am?”

“Erm, I can’t rightly say, Malroff sir,” Arthur pulled the pole with his cactus on it out of the fire, “I mean, you don’ look a day over yer 20s...Do yer _ moisturize _ ?”

Malroth fetched his own cactus slice, biting into it without even pausing to blow on it. Searing hot, just how he liked it. “Actually, I used to be the Master of Destruction until Clarity separated my human half from my monster half and destroyed it. Now I’m human, but...I guess I’m also functionally immortal?”

Arthur dropped his meal. “Cor, that was you? That ‘ole Master o’ Destruction thing was real? Ack, you remember the stories, yeh? How the Children of ‘argon took wanted to bring ‘em back to wreck the ‘ole world?”

Scar grunted, and simply turned to his own meal. “Explains a few things, I s’ppose, ‘specially why Mum went along with yer cockamamie curtain scheme. She must’ve r’membered you.”

“‘E’s, ah, a ‘ard guy to forget, prob’bly.”

They sat in silence for a moment, before Arthur spoke again.

“Does that mean...yer a god?”

Malroth paused mid-chew. He swung his arm up to cover his cactus-stuffed mouth. 

“What?”

“I mean, you are right? A god? Or ‘alf a god? Can you have ‘alf a god?” Scar shrugged.

Malroth swallowed. “You know...I don’t know either.”

That was the last they spoke until they arrived in town with enough cotton to make clothes for every last gollum in the world. The Bars were starting to shine...

...Though only in strategic spots. 

“Well, ‘ey  _ were  _ settin’ th’ wood afire,” Ada confessed with a sheepish shrug. “But now we’re in business proper!”

At first Malroth tried to help with the sewing, even started to get the hang of it after the fifth hour, when Arthur came in wringing his hands, and asked Malroth for help with a few stubborn spots of grease in the cracks. He spent the rest of the day running back and forth between the curtains and the bars, pausing only to be dragged by Ada to the shower room to wash his hands of oil.

The next night, the water was full of stars.

Now Malroth had been away from the Isle of Awakening for a week, and he could feel a shadow encroaching on his heart. The triumphant glow of his accomplishment mixed with worry for Clarity. 

_ I couldn’t have left her work in that state.  _

_ I shouldn’t have been away for so long.  _

_ ...What was it I built that she wanted me to remember? _

Blondebeard grumbled about how such an air-headed man could take such a hazardous position on a boat and Malroth barely heard him, simply catching himself when the boat threatened to throw him off and returning to his thoughts a moment later.

He could smell the Isle before he could see it, and the smell was, at first, comfortably familiar. Baking bread from the Green Gardens, the gladiolus growing by the Scarlet Sands, the constant metal work in the Cerulean Steppe...but when they came into range of it, he could smell something else.

The smell was familiar, far too familiar, acrid and sharp like burning grass. Malroth remembered every time he’d smelled it. When the soldier from Moonahan collapsed in the filthy snow. When Pastor Al breathed his last.

Every time the Isle of Awakening lost a member.

_ “Clarity!” _

Malroth ignored Blondebeard’s angry shout, ignored the bag of supplies on the boat, ignored the biting chill of the early-morning waves, ignored the stinging in his eyes from the salt, ignored all of that to dive into the ocean, swimming with all his strength. His seizing heart and knotted gut hardly hampered him, in fact, they propelled him through the water with a single-minded determination, and he barely broke his stride when the deep waves changed to sucking sand. He bolted towards the front door of her cottage, taking in the darkness of her windows and absence of footprints in the sand outside.

And wafting through the cracks was that damn  _ smell- _

He only narrowly escaped tripping over Lulu’s gravestone, grabbing the top to dodge to the left. “Sorry,” he whispered before closing the distance to Clarity’s door.

“Claire! Clarity! Open up!” Malroth slammed his fist into the door. “Clarity, answer me!” 

Maybe he could just break it down-

And then the latch clicked. Clarity stood in the doorway, glaring daggers at him.

“Don’t you have any idea what  _ time _ it is?”

Malroth stared at her. There was no relief in seeing her, not with the way her eyes were sunken in their sockets. Not with the paleness of her skin that couldn’t be accounted for with just a week indoors, or the deep blue bruises on her elbows, or the weak breathiness of her voice. He could feel his hands start to tremble.

“No...”

“Well, since you’re here, you might as well come in,” her irritation melted into one of familiar friendship, “I’m almost finished with something I’d like you to see. Grab the towel when you sit, will you? Don't get my chairs all wet.”

He didn’t follow her to her table. He couldn’t seem to swallow around the sudden lump in his throat.

“You lied to me.”

“No, I-”

“You did! You knew you were dying and you sent me to Khrumbul-Dun anyway!”

Clarity hobbled over to the table, where a book lay beside a quill in a bottle of ink, and sat heavily in the chair, leaning over on herself as if the effort involved had sapped her strength. Malroth rushed over to her, pulled her up straight and grabbed the chair beside hers before sitting down with his hands on her shoulders.

“How could you do that to me? Did you think I’d just somehow be OK with it if you died while I was gone?”

“I-I didn’t  _ know _ ,” Clarity gasped, “I would  _ never _ do that to you, Malroth, I  _ promise  _ you that. I really just thought it was soreness. I thought I just needed a rest. I really had no idea it was this bad.” She brought her hand up to clasp Malroth’s wrist, and he studied her face. She’d dropped her usual goofy smile in exchange for a face as serious as she’d ever made. Malroth could see she meant it. “Please…” she whispered, “I just need...a minute.”

They sat in silence for a few moments, Clarity sucking in deep gasps of air like she had just been drowning, Malroth feeling a burn behind his eyes that had nothing to do with the salt of the seawater.

“What can I do?” he asked through gritted teeth.

“You can...stop making that face, first of all,” she ventured, “and then tell me...what happened in Khrumbul-Dun.”

He did. He told her about the new people living there, they state they’d left the Bars in, how angry it made him to see it, and how he’d rallied everyone to come together and fix it. By the time he was finished, she’d caught her breath and was smiling at him again. They were still seated, facing each other, with Clarity’s hand resting gently over Malroth’s. Her smile was back, as wide as Malroth had ever seen it.

“That Arthur boy was right, you know,” said Clarity.

Malroth tilted his head. “About what?”

“About you being a god.”

Malroth snorted. “How do you figure that? It’s not like I’m a four armed flying monster anymore. I’m just...me. And as far as I know, that’s all that’s left.”

Clarity lifted her hand to give his a reproachful slap, though it was really more of a tap. “There’s not a ‘just you,’ Malroth. Never has been. You’ve always been special. And maybe you aren’t...a god-god, exactly, but I bet that’s how people will start thinking of you in the future. You’re already so good at getting people to rally...”

Malroth must have pulled a face, because Clarity chuckled. “I’m...not sure I want that, Claire. To be thought of as a god. The Master of Destruction tried to destroy the world as a god. I’m not him.”

“No,” she said quietly, distantly, “you aren’t.”

“Claire?”

“I’m OK, Malroth.”

“Your eyes are glazed over!”

“Are they? Strange. That only used to happen when Bonanzo talked.”

“Stop joking around!” Malroth banged his hand on the table. His voice sounded foreign even to him, trembling and strained as it was.

“Why should I? This...it happens to everyone, Malroth. I’m not special. It’s just...the price of living, I suppose.”

“...I don’t understand.”

“Remember the cough Dougie developed after he went back to Khrumbul-Dun?”

Clarity sat back up, and opened the book she’d had out on the table. Picked up her quill, and started writing. Malroth could remember the first time he’d realized she was getting old without him, when he’d walked in on her with a half-finished window on the workbench and saw her packing snow around her wrist to ease the pain in it.

“Yeah,” said Malroth, “it killed him.”

“He missed mining so much he went back to it, and he got coal in his lungs. That was his price for doing what he loved.” She scratched something on the front page of the book, lifting the cover up to hide it when Malroth leaned up and over to see.

“It’s...not fair,” he said when he sat back down, “it just isn’t. No one should have to die just for doing what they want in life.”

“Creation can’t exist without destruction, remember?” Clarity chuckled. “It’s exactly the same principle. Even if you...well, if  _ someone _ sat in an empty room for their entire life, they’d still get old and die. And then maybe their body would mold in that room, and make way for an entire new batch of fungus to make a village in that room!”

Malroth snorted. “You’re really bad at making me feel better.”

“I know. That’s why I’m building you something. That usually works.”

“The book?”

“Mm-hmm.”

Normally their silences were comfortable, but not here. Not under these circumstances.

“So...what is it?”

“It has to dry first!” Clarity gently waved the page she’d just written on back and forth. “So? Did you remember your first build?”

“Yeah,” Malroth muttered, “it was a  _ pouch of herbs. _ ”

She grinned at him like the cat who ate the canary. “No...think harder!”

“You’re trying to trick me, and I don’t think I like it. Just tell me what you want me to remember already!”

“I’ll do one better,” she said, handing him the book, “I can show you.”

Malroth took it. It was weighty in his hands, the pages made of thick bamboo and bound tightly. Emblazoned on the purple cover was a painting of his belt buckle.

“What is-”

Every page had a new drawing, in elegant, detailed pen strokes, of them. Malroth and Clarity meeting on the beach. Malroth and Clarity sailing to Furrowfeild, destroying monsters, and building a farm. Malroth and Clarity bringing more people to the island to build it up.

It was Malroth’s story, from the very start to now. From mining, to exploring, to being captured and taken to Skelkatraz, to their fight in Moonbrooke.

Malroth lingered on that page. He remembered the Mirror of Ra. He remembered the stabbing in his heart when she had held it up to him. He remembered the way he’d looked into the mirror and seen nothing, no true self, no false self, just nothing. He remembered the way it haunted him afterwards, in the spaces between Hargon’s seeds of doubt.

In the book, the inked mirror had a reflection. And that reflection was Malroth. Just...Malroth. As he was.

“Claire, I think you really should get your memory check-”

Malroth’s breath stopped.

Clarity’s head was slumped on the table across her arms, her eyes half-lidded and staring straight ahead at nothing.

“Claire?”

The book slipped from his hands to the floor.

“Hey...hey, Claire? Clarity? Clarity!”

He jostled her shoulder, which only made her head loll slightly from side to side. She wasn’t responding to his calls. Her eyes wouldn’t follow his hand when he waved it in front of her. Malroth tried to pull her back upright again, but she only fell forward off her chair.

The last time she made him feel like this, he’d been able to break down his sorrow and rebuild it into anger. He’d been able to yell at her, tell her why she’d done him wrong, but now she couldn’t hear him no matter how loudly he wailed. The pain coursing through him had nowhere to go except into the air. So he settled to the wooden floor with Clarity’s body hanging limply in his arms while he sobbed like a child.

He waited. Maybe a shaft of light would come down from the sky and transform her into a goddess of creation. Maybe a ghost would emerge in the cottage. Maybe a second Hairy Hermit would show up to tell him she would never leave-leave-leave him. He waited, and none of that happened.

When his tears lightened enough that he could see again, he turned back to the book, laying where it had fallen open. Regret over dropping it mixed into the cauldron of swirling emotions in his gut, and he moved Clarity’s body into a one armed hug so he could scoop it up again.

How long had she worked on this? Had she worked on this all week? Stayed up all night, every night? Maybe she would have been in better shape if she hadn’t, but maybe it would never have mattered in the first place.

...She’d been writing on it, hadn’t she? He set it on his lap, and flipped it open. On the front page was a title page in sloppy calligraphy reading “THE BOOK OF MALROTH.”

“Unbelievable,” he whispered into her ear. He turned the page.

In shaky, but unmistakable handwriting was a note:

> _ Malroth, _
> 
> _ Even if I lived a thousand years, we’d never build all there was to be built. _
> 
> _ Don’t ever lose sight of who you are and don’t ever forget what you’ve always been best at building: Friendships. _
> 
> _ Your best friend, no matter what, _
> 
> _ Clarity _

Malroth thought he was out of tears, but yet more found his eyes. 

“ _ Completely _ unbelievable, you corny-” 

He sat there for just a moment longer, clutching Clarity to his body, heedless of how cold she had gone. The sun was rising in the distance, illuminating the motes of dust and paper debris floating around the cabin. It would have made all the sense in the world to him if time had stopped, but the world was still real, and time was still passing.

Finally, Malroth tucked the book under his chin and lifted Clarity gently, tucking her body in his arms and holding her close to his chest instead of heaving her over his shoulder as usual. He’d have a long walk to the graveyard, and there was no way he’d be the only one who wanted to make her a memorial. After that…

Well, maybe she was right. Maybe he would be considered a god. Maybe there would be a Children of Malroth someday, and if there was…

It would be up to him to build it  _ properly. _


End file.
